Chekhov's words sum up the motivation for his comedy: laughter as medicine, and a vital prerequisite for any treatment of his fellow human beings. Implicit is the sense that laughter - and comedy - are restorative, and that the objectivity and detachment which laughter may produce could inoculate us against such human diseases as pomposity, hypocrisy, selfcentredness, laziness, or - the worst of all - wasting life.

It is Doctor Chekhov who wrote those words, and beneath them lies a serious but non-judgemental sense that laughter is curative and healthy. Chekhov's comedy is therefore not only a stylistic feature in his works, but is also a vital part of his philosophy. It is the point where content and form meet, the one usually inseparable from the other. And this, in turn, relates to the subject matter of his works - not the artificial and complex, though enjoyable, plot lines of farces by Labiche or Feydeau, or their third-rate imitators, but the daily lives of ordinary people.